I filled out the application the first week of October and am just now closing today, so a little more than three months. They are so backed up on refi's that basically nothing was done for the first month and a half. They did extend the rate lock at no cost since it was there fault though so I would say if it is a good rate it's still worth it.

Both I and my brother refinanced with them in the later part of last year. We both observed the same thing... if you're proactive about pushing things through the wickets it goes pretty quickly (3 weeks for me I think?), if you're not it seemed like it would drag out a long time.

In other words they seemed slightly swamped and the (helpfully!) noisy wheel gets the grease

Also worth noting that they subcontract out a lot of the process to what seemed to be the lowest-bidder. So you'll be dealing with a few different people during the process, won't get much handholding during, and at least in my case, they had some mistakes with the closing paperwork (and provided some of the paperwork that's supposed to be provided at least 24 hours prior to closing more like 12 hours prior)... so read over things carefully.

That said, all mistakes were fixed without any issue, the mistakes looked to be true mistakes (i.e., bringing the wrong piece of paper... something detailing the bank-to-bank payoff stuff I think, not trying to change numbers up from what was expected or anything shady), and I haven't had any problems arise following. My old mortgage company received payment correctly and everything seems to be transfered over and running ok now.

Final thought... their closing sub did forget to ask for a survey prior to closing and asked for one a few months post. I had a copy that I emailed to them; don't know what would have happened if I didn't though.

That said, I'd go through it all again. Noone was trying to scam in there, and it *is* a good deal!

TLDR[Too Long; Didn't Read]: Low cost comes at a price, you'll need to stay on top of the process and it may be a bit rough at the edges

Last edited by Khanmots on Wed Jan 16, 2013 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As a courtesy for having read the whole entire post, at least you could've spelled it out and saved me a trip to google on a fresh tab!

- Porcupine

In other words, TSDU [too short, didn't understand]

Thanks all for the feedback. I'm trying to decide between my local bank, which has decent rates but not as good as PenFed's, and PenFed. The local bank knows me well and has very good service, but as has been said, that comes with a price.

I ended up with AimLoan. Closed in 11 days. I did not need an appraisal. Quoted cost were exact (less no appraisal fee). If your loan to value is such that a questionable (i.e. low appraisal) will not alter your LTV above 80% I would go with them. Great experience.

At a minimum type in the questions on their webpage and see what there rate is. Again, my free quote was exact.

steve r wrote:I ended up with AimLoan. Closed in 11 days. I did not need an appraisal. Quoted cost were exact (less no appraisal fee). If your loan to value is such that a questionable (i.e. low appraisal) will not alter your LTV above 80% I would go with them. Great experience.

At a minimum type in the questions on their webpage and see what there rate is. Again, my free quote was exact.

They don't seem to offer no closing cost loans? For me that was the primary reason reason I went with penfed. My mortgage was around $95k and closing costs made for a prohibitively long payback period. Penfed's 5/5ARM with them paying closing costs meant that (if I slightly accelerated my old payoff schedule from the remaining 12.5 years to 10) I'd immediately be coming out ahead and maintaining that lead even assuming worst case ARM adjustments.

porcupine wrote:

Khanmots wrote:[...]TLDR:[...]

As a courtesy for having read the whole entire post, at least you could've spelled it out and saved me a trip to google on a fresh tab!

I'll just note that you obviously felt that the other readers of this thread should go through the same googling you did

Applied a month ago for a refi and have had only one contact. They did seem to extend the rate lock another month to the end of February, but I'm starting to wonder if they can even meet that timeline. I haven't been proactive because I'm not desperate to refi quickly, but may have to become the squeaky wheel soon.

They initially gave me a closing date for 2 months after initial application. I ended up closing about 4.5 months after applying. They were always friendly and easy to work with but some of the paperwork they required seemed to be redundant (I sent them W-2s more than once...). To be fair, some of the delay was related to me since my house didn't appraise as high as expected so that caused LTV issues that I had to address. Overall pleased with the experience and I knew in advance from reading other peoples experiences that closing might take a few months. Still saved me a lot of money and was clearly the best mortgage for my situation. Plus, someone came to my house with all the paperwork for closing, very convenient! Good luck!

Being a good daughter, I told my parents on November 1 2012 to look at PenFed 5 year HEL. I'm not sure exactly when they started the process after that, but they just closed on Jan 15th. So, at most, it was 2.5 months. The only problem they reported was that PenFed could not locate an appraisal for their house, which has been refi'd several times and should not have required the appraisal anyway according to the 70% LTV rule. They said it was an easy and pretty painfree process and are very happy.

Recently refinanced with PenFed's 5-year 1.99% Program. Some observations:Pros:- Simple process -- entire exercise done on-line, including initial joining of credit union -- small donation to charitable organization. (However, I did make several calls throughout to try and push the effort along.) Closing docs were sent to our home. We signed, got notarized and sent back in overnight envelope provided in the packet. Number of documents were about 1/3 the volume we've seen in several prior refi's- Can't beat the rate of 1.99% fixed for five years. - Not exactly a no-cost exercise, but close. We had to pay $300 for appraisal as loan was over their $275k threshold. No other costs except $20 wiring fee -- see below; however, fine print does say if you pay off loan in less than 2 years, you have to reimburse approximately $900-1000 for costs PenFed absorbs.- Residual proceeds, after payoff of existing loan, can be wired to your designated account ($20 fee) or sent to you by check.- Friendly service agents -- although not always on top of things -- see "cons" below.

Cons: - PenFed moves at its own pace. When we first applied, we had some urgency for a quick close. Repeated calls didn't seem to move things any faster. Our need for a quick close went away so we let the process run its course. In all, initial application went in on October 15 and we finally closed on January 22. Bottom line: look elsewhere if you have a hard deadline for closing.-While the PenFed folks were always cordial, they often didn't provide accurate verbal updates. The on-line notices were also a bit confusing, if not contradictory. For example, after a conversation ending with my saying: "so you have everything you need and the ball's in your court" and a response of "yes." The following day, our on-line application status with ding with a request for a document previously provided. Not a huge problem and similar to the issues we've run into with other mortgage applications.

Bottom Line: Despite a few annoyances, (1) if you're not pressed for time and (2) can handle a 5-year amortization schedule, PenFed's 5 year HEL Program is worth considering.